Ifs and Maybes
by Trillian Astra
Summary: A selection of short Doctor Who stories, about everything and nothing. Each story could feature just about anyone, Torchwood characters included. Standard disclaimer applies. Please review.
1. Give My Love To Rose

Ifs and Maybes

**Ifs and Maybes**

This is just going to be a collection of short stories, dealing with the many "What if…" moments that Doctor Who gives us. Most will involve Nine and Ten, because I know most about them, although Doctors One through Eight are probably going to appear at some stage. Companions featured will mostly be Rose, Martha, Donna and Jack, but again it's likely that others will show up as well.

Genres will also vary, with everything from romance to tragedy to comedy…

…oh, let's be honest. Basically I get way, way too many plotbunnies scurrying around inside my head and this seems like a good way to get them out. If you don't like one story, there'll probably be another one that you do like. Whichever way it ends up, I am actually addicted to reviews, so don't forget that little bluey-purpley button.

(The first story is a little bit strange. It involves a person from the parallel world, where Rose is, meeting the Doctor in _our_ world, and being sent home with a message for Rose. The title is a Johnny Cash song, if you're interested. It doesn't much matter who the narrator is, so don't worry about it.)

**#1: Give My Love To Rose**

I stumbled through the portal, back into my own world. I turned just in time to see the window between the worlds close forever. When it was gone, I remembered that the Doctor had given me a mission.

I had to find Rose Tyler. I had to give her a message.

When I had found my bearings, I made my way to the headquarters of the Torchwood Institute. Apparently they would know where to find Miss Tyler, or so the Doctor seemed to think. I entered the tall, imposing building, and made my way to the Reception desk, staffed by a pretty brunette girl.

"How may I help you, sir?"

"Er… I need to speak to Rose Tyler. It's urgent. I have to give her a message."

"Of course, sir. Unfortunately Miss Tyler is very busy today, she can't be disturbed. If you could write the message down I can make sure she gets it."

"No! I have to see her, in person. I have to talk to her. He said I had to tell it to her and only her."

"Who did, sir?"

"The Doctor. He's the one who gave me the message."

The brunette's eyes widened, and she quickly checked something on her computer. "Well, sir, seeing as this involves the Doctor, I can make an exception. I'll call someone to take you up to her."  
"Thank you."

She pressed a button on her headset. "Ianto? I have a man here who needs to speak to Miss Tyler, can you come down and collect him?" Then she turned back to me. "Someone will be here shortly, sir."

A few minutes later, a smartly-dressed young man appeared, and guided me through several corridors, up two flights of stairs and through some more corridors, before stopping in a small anteroom. He knocked on a door marked "Rose Tyler, Deputy Commander", and showed me in before closing the door after me.

I saw a young blonde woman sitting at a desk that was heaped with paperwork. I coould also see several framed photographs, most of which featured a small boy with messy brown hair. "Oh, hello. Who are you?"

"Uh… that's not important. I have a message for you, from the Doctor."

"What? How is that possible?"

"I hardly know myself… there was a window, from this world into another one. The other world looked so much like this one, too. The Doctor found me not far from the window… he asked me where I had come from, and then he said he was going to send me home before he fixed it. Before I came back through, he gave me a message for Rose Tyler."

"That's me. What's the message?

"He said… he told me to give you his love. He said to tell you to look after yourself, and that he knows you'll be okay raising his son, and that he wishes he could get to know him."

"How… how does he know about his son?"

"He said you'd ask that. He told me to tell you it was just a lucky guess."

"That sounds like him." To my surprise, she started to cry.

"Er… Miss Tyler? Are you okay?"

"Call me Rose, please. Everyone here calls me "Miss Tyler" and I'm sick of it."  
"Sorry. Are you okay, Rose?"

She nodded. "Yeah. It's just… I miss him so much. It's been so long since I saw him. Seven years, now, since we were separated. Tell me… did he look like this?"

She held out a picture for me, a photograph of herself with a tall, skinny man in a long brown coat. "Yes, yes that's him."

"Good. That's good, at least." She put the photograph back. "This is my son. His son." She held out a different picture.

"Very nice. What's his name?"

"Jack. Really it's John Peter Tyler, but we all call him Jack."

"It's a good name."

"I named him after his dad, and my dad. And I had a really good friend called Jack once, so that's three people he's named for." She started crying again.

"Er… what now?"

"Nothing. I'll be fine… I just wish I could get a message back to him, that's all."

"Oh. Sorry."

"It's okay. Thank you for bringing the message."

"I'll be going now, if that's okay."

"Of course. Thank you, again."

"It was my pleasure, Rose."

I left quickly and quietly, and never went back to the Torchwood Institute.

_When the stranger left, Rose wiped away her tears with a tissue. She was still looking at the picture of her son, which she had placed next to that of his father. She whispered to herself "I love you too, Doctor"._

--

So…

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	2. Empty Rooms

#2: Empty Rooms

**#2: Empty Rooms**

The Doctor was busy, tinkering with something in the console room. For the first half-hour or so Donna had hung around, asking questions, but then he got annoyed with her and told her to find something else to entertain herself with.

Shrugging, she left and headed down one of the corridors. Passing the bathroom, the kitchen and the library, she found a corridor of rooms. When the Doctor had shown her around earlier, he'd told her not to go into those rooms… but then, he wasn't here, was he?

She went up to the first door and carefully turned the handle. Inside was a fairly ordinary looking bedroom – bed, wardrobe, a mirror, some shelves. Stepping inside, she found that the wardrobe was full of clothes – some of which would have fit a child, others designed for an adult woman. The shelves held a mix of books, some children's stories at one end and dry-looking scientific textbooks at the other. Looking around, she spotted a notebook left on the bedside table. It was filled with notes and doodles, and on the inside front cover was the name Susan Foreman, written in a young girl's neatest handwriting. Donna wondered who Susan Foreman had been – judging from her room it looked like she'd grown up in the TARDIS. Putting the notebook down, she found an old black-and-white photograph, showing a teenage girl with dark hair standing with an old man. She could see the TARDIS in the background. On the back was written "Grandfather and Me, 76 Totter's Lane 1963". Seeing the TARDIS in the picture was a surprise… "No way…" she murmured to herself. "He couldn't be…"

She quickly replaced the picture and left the room. She walked a little further down the corridor before choosing the next room to enter. This one was, quite frankly, a tip. There were clothes scattered over much of the floor. This room, unlike the last, had a large desk, which was covered with a variety of long-unused chemistry equipment. There was a large container labelled "Nitro-9: Highly Explosive" on the floor nearby. Donna had no idea who this room had belonged to… but they worried her. As she was leaving, she saw a battered leather jacket hanging up by the door. The jacket had several patches sewn onto it for decoration, and across the back was one word: ACE, in curling capital letters.

Apparently that was who had slept there.

The next room proved equally interesting, for a different reason. It was (slightly) neater than Ace's, with the clothing heaped in a pile in one corner. There were a couple of pink-and-purple cushions on the bed, and little decorative touches scattered around that told her this room had definitely belonged to a girl. There were a few photos blu-tacked to the wall – the same blonde girl appeared in all of them, while the other people were a middleaged blonde woman (probably her mother), some other young people of about the same age, and the Doctor. That photo was a surprise. The Doctor looked completely different – the same face, but he seemed to be almost glowing with happiness. She knew enough about his 'friends' to know that this must be Rose's room.

The room next to Rose's was neater. This time the wardrobe held a man's clothes – mostly shirts and tailored trousers, with the odd tshirt or pair of combats. And, oddly, what looked like an old RAF flight suit. There weren't many personal items in this room, though there was a long-abandoned piece of alien tech lying on the floor in pieces, as if the room's owner had been working on it and hadn't been able to finish before he left. She found one other interesting thing – an old identification card, with the name Jack Harkness, which told her that the card's owner had been in the RAF in 1941. At least that explained the flight suit.

As she left, she decided that she wouldn't look at any of the other rooms. The furniture in the four she had looked into was covered with dust – clearly the Doctor hadn't been into any of those rooms for a long time. Maybe the reminders of his old friends were too painful for him.

--

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	3. A Strange Kind of Survivor's Guilt

**So... this is just a random little oneshot about Lucy Saxon. She is an odd one, isn't she?**

**Disclaimer****: Do I _look_**** like Russell T Davies? No, this ain't mine.**

**#3: A Strange Kind of Survivor's Guilt**

Sometimes, she thinks that she shouldn't feel guilty for surviving when he didn't. But then something in her head reminds her that she shot him, she pulled the trigger.

The plan was so perfect. It was all going to be so wonderful when Harry's plan came to fruition. A perfect new world, and she would have been its queen.

But then _they_ had to come along and spoil it. The Doctor and the Freak and that stupid girl. They ruined everything, and now she had nothing. No husband, no wonderful new world, no status, nothing.

After he died, she'd been taken to her parents' country home. A doctor said she was suffering from post-traumatic shock, and she was coddled and looked after like a sick child for a few weeks. She took pains to make sure that they thought she was recovering – always hiding her true thoughts, her true feelings. Eventually, she told her parents – so old now, so worried about dear, sweet little Lucy, so _caring_ – that she wanted to take a holiday, by herself. They let her go.

She didn't take much. One suitcase, with a few clothes and some jewellery. And of course she had _it_. The ring. Harry's ring (in her head, she still thinks of him as Harry, even though she knows it wasn't his name).

She takes her one little suitcase, and the ring, and she finds a place to stay. She's frustrated, because she wants it to be now. But she remembers the plan. The instructions he gave her, in case anything went wrong. She had to wait until her son was born. Then it would all be all right again.

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	4. The Diary

Let's face it, there isn't really much point to this

**Let's face it, there isn't really much point to this. It's just a way of getting a whole lotta Companions together in one place, really.**

**#4: The Diary**

Susan found the Diary tucked away between two large and very dull-looking books in the Library. Sliding it out, she saw it was a slim volume, with a dark-blue cover that matched the exterior of the TARDIS, and the word "DIARY" embossed on the front. Opening it, she saw it was empty – just page after page of blank, cream-coloured paper.

Grandfather was busy in the control room, so Susan took the little book back to her room. Sitting on her bed, she started to write. About the things she and Grandfather had seen, about the parents she didn't have any more, about everything really. When she finished writing, she had a strange feeling – that she shouldn't keep the book, but instead leave it somewhere for someone else to find. Turning to the front page, she wrote her name on the inside of the front cover. Then she took it to the first room she came across – the lab – and hid it at the bottom of a drawer.

--

Adric had been working on an experiment in the lab when he found the diary. He had simply reached into a drawer to find an extra clamp, and his fingers had found the diary's smooth cover instead. When the experiment was over, he took it back to his room. There was only one entry, and a name written on the inside – Susan.

He wrote an entry of his own, feeling that it was the right thing to do, then added his name underneath Susan's, before finding a place for it in the medical bay.

--

Ace found the diary in a first-aid kit in the medical bay. When she had added her own entry and written her name after Adric's, she hid it in the kitchen.

--

Rose found the diary next, and when it was her turn to hide it she put it in the pocket of a coat hanging up in the TARDIS' extensive wardrobe.

--

When Jack's turn came, he put the diary in the ship's storage cupboard, where the Doctor kept a variety of tools and random pieces of memorabilia.

--

The Doctor had sent Martha looking for some piece of equipment that he (apparently) desperately needed, and she was searching through a very disorganised storage room to find it. As she was on her way out, she noticed the diary poking out of one of the boxes, and picked it up.

In a quiet moment later on, she opened the book. The first thing she noticed was the list of names, all in different handwriting, down the inside cover. The first was Susan, the last was Jack, and there were maybe a dozen names in between. Martha spent that night reading the entries… getting an idea of how the Doctor's old companions had thought and felt.

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**It wants to be pressed. So press it, or I'll send Daleks after you.**


	5. Children

Explanation for this: Well… there isn't one

**Explanation for this: Well… there isn't one. Basically, they've been reproducing. And their various kids have been running around inside my head. I think someone gave them sugar… **

**Disclaimer: Sadly, no, not mine. The kids, though… they are mine. Unfortunately.**

**#5: Children**

As the TARDIS materialised inside the Hub early on a Saturday afternoon, Rosie Harkness looked up from her homework, and smiled. She stood up, exercise books forgotten, and ran up the stairs to her dad's office, pushing the door open.

Jack looked up at the sound of the door opening. "What is it, Rosie? You need help with your homework?"  
"No, it's only maths. Daddy's here."

"What? When?"  
"The TARDIS started materialising just now."

Jack ran out of his office, followed by his daughter, just in time to see the Doctor step out. Rosie ran past and into his arms. "Daddy!"

He caught her in a big hug, ruffling her messy brown hair. "Hey, Rosie. Have you been a good girl for your dad?"

"Of course. I'm always good." She said, smiling sweetly.

Jack walked down the steps. "Don't believe her. She's a little terror and she knows it."

"Dad!"

"So… any particular reason for this visit?"

"Oh, you know… the ship could do with refueling… and Rose thought we hadn't seen you for a while."

Jack didn't get a chance to reply, because a blonde haired girl came running out. "Uncle Jack!"

"Hey there, Andi."

"Can I have a job yet, Uncle Jack?"

"Uh… maybe in a few years." Andi – well, her name was Andromeda, really, but no-one called her that unless she was in trouble – had just turned thirteen. As she was only a few months younger than Rosie, the girls were good friends, even though they didn't see much of each other.

"Hey, girls…"  
"Yes, dad?"

"I think your Aunt Martha might need some help in the Boardroom, why don't you go and help her out?"

"Okay!" Both girls said together, before running off together.

Jack looked over at the Doctor. "So. Everything okay for you?"

"Oh, yeah, you know how it is. Everything's great."  
"Doc. Come on, tell me the truth."

The Doctor looked relieved. "Oh, honestly, it's terrible. Andi's at such a curious age right now, always wanting to know how things work… what?" He had heard Jack mumble something that sounded a lot like _takesafterherfatherthen_. Jack hastily pretended that it had been a cough.

"Oh, nothing."  
"Ri-ight. Well, the twins don't help, they're such a handful sometimes, and Rose is always worrying about them, so she gets worried about where we go… and she's got her hands full looking after Lily and Jamie… I've got a TARDIS full of excitable children and I don't know what to do, basically."

"Cheer up, Doc. At least you don't have to deal with teenagers. Yet."

"Oi, you! How's your lot, anyway?"  
"Rosie's doing great. She loves the school she's at now, though I did have to have a talk with her about not talking about Torchwood at school. And I think she got her gift for maths from you."

"And Jax?"  
"He seems to be doing all right. You'd have to ask Martha though. Where is Rose, anyway?"

"Probably getting the twins presentable."

At that moment, Rose emerged accompanied by two sets of twins. The elder pair, Cassie and Kas, greeted Jack politely, then moved aside. He then had to deal with the younger pair, his and Rose's twins Lily and Jamie – eight years old and basically unstoppable. He groaned… wishing for the relative quiet of this morning when it had only been him, Martha and the rest of the team, Rosie, and Martha's little boy Jax.

**By way of clarification, I'll list the kids, their ages and who their parents are. Trust me, it gets complicated.**

**Rosemary "Rosie" Estelle Harkness**

**Age 13-and-a-half.**

**Parents: The Doctor, Jack.**

**Andromeda "Andi" Ranissavatta Smith-Tyler**

**Age 13**

**Parents: The Doctor, Rose.**

**Cassiopeia "Cassie" Jarikka Smith-Tyler and Kastor "Kas" Yelvioran Smith-Tyler**

**Age 11 (they're twins)**

**Parents: The Doctor, Rose.**

**John Leo "Jax" Smith-Jones**

**Age 8**

**Parents: The Doctor, Martha.**

**Lily-Rose "Lily"Jacqueline Harkness-Tyler and James "Jamie" Alistair Harkness-Tyler**

**Age 8 (twins again!)**

**Parents: Jack, Rose.**

**I know that Jax, Lily and Jamie's parentages are probably going to confuse people… don't worry, there wasn't anything too weird going on. There were some potent alien aphrodisiacs involved, though.**

**Now review, or I'll make sure that you have to babysit all the Smith-Tyler-Harkness-Jones kids. For a month.**


	6. Savin' Me

#6: Savin' Me

**Songfic time! I was listening to Nickelback today and thought this song connected quite well with Jack… and here it is. The song is "Savin' Me" from the album "All The Right Reasons". Oh, and this is pre-Utopia. **

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who not mine, Torchwood not mine, Nickelback not mine, Jack Harkness not mine. I think that covers it.**

**#6: Savin' Me**

_Prison gates won't open up for me_

_On these hands and knees I'm crawlin'_

_Oh, I reach for you_

_Well I'm terrified of these four walls_

_These iron bars can't hold my soul in_

_All I need is you_

_Come please I'm callin'_

_And oh I scream for you_

_Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin'_

A hundred years, waiting. I've spent every waking moment wishing that I'd find him again, that he'd come back. And the nightmares, where I'm trapped somewhere, where I'm close to him but can never quite reach him.

When I started having that nightmare, I would wake up screaming. Crying his name – and sometimes her name – as if I could call them back just by saying their names. But I can't. She's dead and he's gone, and I'm all alone.

_Show me what it's like_

_To be the last one standing_

_And teach me wrong from right_

_And I'll show you what I can be_

_Say it for me_

_Say it to me_

_And I'll leave this life behind me_

_Say it if it's worth saving me_

A hundred years. I've seen so much… and I've lost so many friends. Every time I get close to someone… I watch them get older, and die, and all the time I still look the same as I did when I met them. And that's true of almost everyone I know.

Except _him_. He knows what it's like to be the last one left. The only one left. I don't know how he copes with it… if I find him again, I'll ask him how he does it. Assuming that he wants anything to do with me, of course.

_Heaven's gates won't open up for me_

_With these broken wings I'm fallin'_

_And all I see is you_

_These city walls ain't got no love for me_

_I'm on the ledge of the eighteenth story_

_And oh I scream for you_

_Come please I'm callin'_

_And all I need from you_

_Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin'_

The nightmares haven't come for years now. No, now I just see _him_. Every dream, every time I close my eyes, all I see is _him_. Sometimes I think I actually preferred the nightmares. Seeing him all the time hurts more than any nightmare ever could. When it gets too much I go out, into the city. Find a rooftop somewhere and just stand for a while. Watching the city from up there… it's calming. It reminds me that I have a purpose now.

_All I need is you_

_Come please I'm callin'_

_And oh, I scream for you_

_Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin', I'm fallin'_

But I need to see him again. I can pretend that I'm okay, and get on with my life, but it doesn't make the longing, the _need_, go away. If I don't find him soon, I don't know what will happen.


End file.
